Sathya S
It was not very long ago that the Supreme Court sought the assistance of the Editors Guild and other representative bodies of the Press to chalk out guidelines to protect he interests of readers from unscrupulous advertisements published in the Newspapers. That was when an aggrieved party in the case of a matrimonial ad had approached the court for justice. Following this the newspaper published a notice to advertisers to be ethical in their announcements.
But what about the ads that have negative social impact? That are degrading to women? Does any body approach the judiciary in the larger interest of the society?
Such cases are rare, very rare indeed since advertising revenue rules the market. But readers, listeners or viewers of the media can do what the publishing, broadcasting, or telecasting companies cannot do by themselves. And that has been achieved by a media monitoring committee of a Women`s Organisation against several ads that depict women derogatively.
Following a complaint by the Media Monitoring Committee of the All India Democratic Women¿s Association, the union government has decided to take action against several private channels that have telecast the objectionable ads. The government announced in the Rajya Sabha that action would be taken according to the Cable TV Network Act of 1995.
AIDWA`s objection to the ads of Fair and Lovely, ICICI and LIC were based on the grounds that they `promote son preference and look down upon the single women`. The announcement in the Rajya Sabha follows the notice served by the National Human Rights Commission on the
Union ministry for Information and Broadcasting as the complaint was lodged with the NHRC.
According to AIDWA `the ICICI advertisement sent the message that marriage was the only `protection` for a woman and her husband the only `protector` possible. The Fair and Lovely advertisement showed a man lamenting the fact that he had a daughter and not a son when his family was in need of an additional breadwinner. The daughter was shown to be a simple, plain young girl. She then transformed herself into a mini-skirted glamorous woman, noticeably more fair skinned (presumably after using the fair and lovely product) who got a job in an airline. The message was clear - sons not daughters are natural breadwinners; a girl can only land a good job if she displays and improves her physical attributes.
The LIC advertisement recommended the advisability of insurance policies which could help pay for a son`s education or a girl`s marriage thus reinforcing a retrograde social attitude that sees marriage as the only future for a daughter and a daughter as a liability while a son is an investment.
In fact these are not the only advertisements that depict women in a derogatory way. The ad on Good Night mosquito mats abuses women as good for nothing beings. The multi lingual ad, scorn at the women who have not demanded `the brand`. The supposedly intelligent husband of a woman comes back to the shop to return the mat and thunders, `neevu nanna hendathiyanna goobe antha tilkondidheera. Mosquito mat andre Good Night mat, gothayta?` (do you think my
wife is an owl? Moquito mat means Good Night mat. Do you understand?) - calling someone `owl` in Kannada means a good for nothing person). The next sequence shows many more women, now wiser by the virtue of `the man`, returning the earlier purchased mats and demanding Good Night. In the milieu it says women lack common sense, women are fit for public abusing and only men are capable of commercial transactions.
A more shocking ad was that of Get it Yellow Pages on the Star TV network some months ago, late in the night. It advertised for the advocates who deal with divorce cases `in support of fair skinned, educated, wealthy looking men, whose wife, also fair skinned, educated and wealthy looking, delivered a dark skinned baby`. In a country where women are beaten up, put on fire, killed and thrown out of the house for successively giving birth to girl children, one do not have to explain the impact of such ads. It is disgusting that the so-called creative minds of advertising agencies can think so low.
There are a number of ads that prepare the young girls for dating, marriage, and housekeeping. All the ads on fairness creams do nothing but this. In another ad for Fair and Lovely the father is trying hard to tie the knot of his dark complexioned daughter with an elderly, dark skinned, bald head man. Horrified by the kind of proposals she is getting the daughter finds solution in the fairness cream and manages to attract a handsome young man. The horoscope in the hands of the father flies away into thin air thanks to the fair complexion. This ad has a little girl who feels sorry for the sister initially and rejoices over the sister`s achievement later. The little girl is the next generation consumer for the product!
In another ad the young man is all-appreciative of the young neighbourhood dance teacher as long as he watches her from the rear angle. Once he sees her dark face, he is taken aback. As usual the danseuse empties a few tubes of the fairness cream forgetting all about her talent and her independent position, only to win back the man.
Indeed these ads are an attack on the individuality of a woman. Here is a young woman who wants to be featured on the cover page of a woman`s magazine. A fairness cream has a way out. Achieve fairness and wear modern outfit you will be there on the cover page, says the ad. Interestingly all the fairness creams have only the girls with dark complexion. Men are mostly fair skinned. When did they run the ads for men to get fair skinned?
Earlier, advertisements were to sell products or services through mass media. But today, they are more powerful than the media itself. They have grown from being a part of the mass media into independent media by themselves. The onset of satellite channels has contributed to the unlimited ad space. It is a fact that there is a large section of audience or to be specific, large number of buyers who are influenced by advertising. People react to the media content by purchasing the goods that the ads promote. At least 80 percent of more than 100 students surveyed in a women`s college in Mangalore admitted that their first response to media content is to the ads as buyers.
Ads in the recent days are back to the old role models of women clad in modern outfits and with modern gadgets. For a brief period, when the consumer goods industry`s selling point was at its peak, women were shown to be making decisions, economically independent, educated and assertive. The Ponds talcum powder`s model was a civil engineer and the product was helping her feel fresh on the work site, under the scorching sun. But there has been a regression in role models instead of moving ahead. It is a pointer to the hidden agenda that looks at women as only daughters, wives and mothers. If this trend is to be tackled head on, there has to be citizen action based on monitoring.
contact: sathya_ki@yahoo.com